Replacement workers brought in to ease funeral home strike

July 02, 2013|By Mugambi Mutegi | Tribune reporter

Operations at Dignity Memorial Home were thrown into confusion Tuesday after funeral directors and drivers went on strike over a wage and pension dispute even as management brought in external replacements to keep the business running.

At the heart of the disagreement is an attempt by the workers' union, Teamsters Local 727, to secure contracts promising annual 3 percent wage increases for five years.

The union also wants $1,100 a month pension maintained for the 59 union members working in Dignity Memorial's 16 funeral homes in Chicagoland.

Service Corporation International (SCI), Dignity Memorial's Houston-based parent, offered a 9 percent wage increase over the next two years -- 6 percent in the first year and 3 the second.

SCI also proposed replacing the pension plan with a 401(k), claiming the pension is not only costly and underfunded but it also is a "source of rampant litigation initiated by Teamsters."

The 401(k) includes a dollar-for-dollar company match up to the first 4 percent of annual contributions.

"The pension contributions have been escalating rapidly, climbing 39 percent in the last three years and more than tripling in the last 10," said Larry Michael, managing director for SCI Illinois Services Inc. which manages the Chicagoland business. "The costs are going up at such an alarming rate that it just reinforces our fears about the overall viability of the pension fund. We have expressed our concern over the history of serious underfunding in this pension plan and the risks it brings to both the company and its employees."

This stalemate led the union on Monday night to strike.

To minimize disruption to its business, SCI says it has brought in Illinois-licensed funeral directors to "ensure that service will be seamless and uninterrupted."

However, striking funeral directors have set up a helpline and website to assist clients who made bookings before Monday's decision see their funeral plans through.

"There are funerals that were arranged say from last week and they were planned to take place this week," said Brian Rainville, the union's spokesman. "We will not picket these funeral arrangements since we originally set up the work but we are already picketing the ones set up by the outsider directors. We are going to be outside these funeral homes every day and we will remain there until the company comes back to negotiate."

As of 2010, the median pay for the 29,300 funeral directors in the U.S. was $54,330 per year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. SCI says most of its funeral directors receive more than $100,000 per year, when overtime is figured in.

Jessica Koth, the public relations manager at the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA), says there are currently 19,624 funeral homes across the country. Approximately 86 percent of these are owned by families and individuals, and 14 percent are owned by publicly listed firms.

Other than SCI, the other publicly traded companies running funeral homes are Texas-based Carriage Services and Pennsylvania-based Stonemor Partners.

Most privately owned funeral homes do not have unionized employees, according to NFDA. "It is not common to find privately owned funeral homes having unionized employees maybe because they felt they were being treated fairly," said Koth.

Teamsters Local 727 has represented Chicago's funeral directors and embalmers for close to seven decades.

"In 40 years as a funeral director, I've helped thousands of people through some of the most difficult times in their lives. Striking is not something I ever thought I would have to do,"said John Liberatore, a director at Piser Funeral Services in Skokie and a member of Teamsters.